Newtown students return to school (+video)

Students in Newtown, Connecticut, other than those from Sandy Hook Elementary, went back to school on Tuesday. Friday's mass shooting has left the community in recovery mode and politicians around the country rethinking the nation's gun laws.

Most students returned to school in the devastated Connecticut community of Newtown on Tuesday for the first time since a gunman's rampage killed 26 people in an elementary school, reviving the gun control debate in Washington.

Breaking its silence for the first time since the shootings, the powerful gun industry lobby, the National Rifle Association, said it was "shocked, saddened and heartbroken" and was "prepared to offer meaningful contributions" to prevent such massacres.

Businesses also reacted. One retailer, Dick's Sporting Goods, pulled all guns from its store closest to Newtown and suspended the sale of certain semi-automatic rifles in its stores nationwide. A private equity firm said it would sell its investments in the company that makes the AR-15 type Bushmaster rifle used in the shootings after pressure from a major teachers' pension fund.

Sandy Hook Elementary, where Adam Lanza gunned down 20 6- and 7-year-olds and six adults on Friday, remained closed. It was a crime scene on Tuesday, with police coming and going past a line of 26 Christmas trees, one for each victim, decorated with ornaments, stuffed animals and balloons in the school colors of green and white.

The rest of Newtown's schools reopened with grief counselors and police present, while two families buried their children.

"It's going to be awful, doing the things we used to do," said Miguel, 16, who stopped by a doughnut shop on his way to Newtown High School. "There's going to be a lot of tears."